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| Track list: 1. Horse Overboard 2. Birthday Girl 3. Past 4. Humane 5. Are You Happy 6. Genius 7. Begging Bowl 8. A Friend with a Big Mouth 9. Goodbye It's 1987 10. And 11. Harmony Time 12. Money for Trams 13. Genius 14. 464 15. Goodbye It's 1987 16. Horse Overboard Running time: 73 minutes Released: 1985 |
Microdisney. Genius that I was too young for at the time and which I have since come to adore. My copy of this is a re-issue with bonus tracks - alternate versions. I have the majority of these songs on the Daunt Square to Elsewhere best of anyway, and/or on Big Sleeping House too, but sought out original material for what I was missing. Less than I would have thought, to go by the track list.
This album starts with a trio of tunes I am well acquainted with. Light pop-y tones, spangly little guitars, snappy beats and Cathal Coughlan's vocal... lovely and lyrical, yet far from the sweetness and light you get from tone alone. This is an 80s I could have stomached; the majority of stereotypically 80s fare leaves me cold. Ever since I first heard Microdisney I have felt that the juxtaposition of nice clean and wholesome tunes with such dark and acerbic lyrics was a stroke of genius. Look this way, don't see what we are really doing. Entice with the shallow, reward with depth.
This is comfortable, familiar. Birthday Girl, then Past... the other way around than on Daunt Square, but that's a minor quibble. They both fit squarely into the mould - pop songs with dark centres. Approachable and identifiable, pop-filled with personality. The version of Past here sounds a little muted to my ears, the intro not having quite the same resonance to it that I am used to. Subtle differences in the recording perhaps, or just an artefact of it not being the disc-opener? The tune is just so... nice and enticing, I guess. The lyrics are sad and despairing, threatening, defeatist even but Coughlan's singing is pitched so well as to make it engaging and poignant without making it anything other than an enjoyable pop song at the same time.
Humane is the fourth track, the first that I don't really know (we have another triptych of familiar tunes to follow it). This sounds tinny by comparison to what came before, thinner. The vocal is edgier, less melodic, but just as pointed. The tune is definitely less immediately engaging - in places it sounds flat and repetitive, the workload and heart of the track shifted to the singing. The long bridge with no vocals... no, the long outro as it turns out tries to do something to liven up the accompaniment but frankly it feels a little weak. Perhaps that is just unfamiliarity winning out in the bias stakes because as soon as Are You Happy starts I am back in my comfort zone. I do prefer the lusher background sounds. This song is slower, a stately pace giving lots of space between lines, letting the vocal breathe. It's never been amongst my favourite Mircodisney tunes but I find now that I really like this effect and the lack of sparkle in the tune is apt.
This is becoming a blow-by-blow, if only because my head is emptying as I relax as a result of not being at work. Genius sounds different. I guess that makes sense in that the other version of this tune I have was presumably recorded live - it is on The Peel Sessions. Here it has a sort of stately edge to it, a slower tempo than I associate with the chorus when I hear it in my head. Oh, definite difference... a verse in the middle is pretty much spoken here where it is very definitely sung in the other version. This feels flatter to me, but then we get a nice melodic outro which pulls the whole tune up with its peppy, light touch.
It does not surprise me that Microdisney weren't a big hit at the time, any more than it surprises me that clever songwriters of my era seem to fly under the radar. That said, there are clearly enough pop sensibilities in these tunes that you could see many of them as radio hits - not all of them, by any means; the slower tunes are not for the mass market, but the livelier numbers could have belted out from radio sets all over and not been out of place.
The songs are clever, on-the-nose. The dark anger, acid and indignation are concealed under a veneer of wholesome pop. I imagine that a lot of the lyrics are incredibly pointed - though it is not always clear, through the fog of 30 years passing (and, perhaps, my not being Irish) what they were pointed at. In some cases it is very clear indeed either directly from the lyrics or through documentation of their targets (though my go-to examples are noticeably not from this disc). I find myself looking up and finding a song I really don't recognise playing... Harmony Time and Money for Trams are two tracks that I don't have in other forms, and the former came on just now. It has a different feel to it, faster-paced, skinny guitar, synthetic keys, a rough-and-tumble rhythm. It almost feels like an improvised tune cribbed out at the end of a concert rather than a planned recording. There is something about it that reminds me of For Those of Y'all Who Wear Fanny Packs - a Ben Folds Five tune where the trio were pissing about in the studio, which was released as part of Naked Baby Photos.
Money for Trams was, I guess, the original end point of the album. This has a slow pace and a cop-show edginess. Vocals are spoken with a PA-like effect. It feels like tense movie music. After a bit of a pause in play - things come up even during time off it seems! - I resume and the same repeating bassline meanders along. Coughlan screeches something over the top, a very different tone of voice to the majority of the lyrics here. All in all I think the song is pretty dull, then we are into the bonuses, which a bit of Googling suggests are Peel Session tracks... so I have these elsewhere.
Genius is indeed faster, and better for it. 464 was not on this album; in fact it seems to only have been on the Peel Session - a bonus track then in truth, though one that made the later anthology. I find myself too much in a stupor to offer much on these closing numbers... though when Goodbye It's 1987 starts playing again it hits me that this was not on the Peel Sessions disc I bought so... well. You know - I can't actually compare the two versions on this disc even. I don't specifically recall enough of the first time it came about. I guess I have been stuck in a relaxing reverie. This second version is light-touch and open, soft and... lazy? Lazy in a good sense - like a Sunday afternoon: easy and to be left to wash over you.
I get the feeling I should perhaps kill some of the duplicates but I also don't feel moved to do so. As I stare blankly at the screen, Horse Overboard finishes for the second time, and suddenly I am done. Ho hum.
This album starts with a trio of tunes I am well acquainted with. Light pop-y tones, spangly little guitars, snappy beats and Cathal Coughlan's vocal... lovely and lyrical, yet far from the sweetness and light you get from tone alone. This is an 80s I could have stomached; the majority of stereotypically 80s fare leaves me cold. Ever since I first heard Microdisney I have felt that the juxtaposition of nice clean and wholesome tunes with such dark and acerbic lyrics was a stroke of genius. Look this way, don't see what we are really doing. Entice with the shallow, reward with depth.
This is comfortable, familiar. Birthday Girl, then Past... the other way around than on Daunt Square, but that's a minor quibble. They both fit squarely into the mould - pop songs with dark centres. Approachable and identifiable, pop-filled with personality. The version of Past here sounds a little muted to my ears, the intro not having quite the same resonance to it that I am used to. Subtle differences in the recording perhaps, or just an artefact of it not being the disc-opener? The tune is just so... nice and enticing, I guess. The lyrics are sad and despairing, threatening, defeatist even but Coughlan's singing is pitched so well as to make it engaging and poignant without making it anything other than an enjoyable pop song at the same time.
Humane is the fourth track, the first that I don't really know (we have another triptych of familiar tunes to follow it). This sounds tinny by comparison to what came before, thinner. The vocal is edgier, less melodic, but just as pointed. The tune is definitely less immediately engaging - in places it sounds flat and repetitive, the workload and heart of the track shifted to the singing. The long bridge with no vocals... no, the long outro as it turns out tries to do something to liven up the accompaniment but frankly it feels a little weak. Perhaps that is just unfamiliarity winning out in the bias stakes because as soon as Are You Happy starts I am back in my comfort zone. I do prefer the lusher background sounds. This song is slower, a stately pace giving lots of space between lines, letting the vocal breathe. It's never been amongst my favourite Mircodisney tunes but I find now that I really like this effect and the lack of sparkle in the tune is apt.
This is becoming a blow-by-blow, if only because my head is emptying as I relax as a result of not being at work. Genius sounds different. I guess that makes sense in that the other version of this tune I have was presumably recorded live - it is on The Peel Sessions. Here it has a sort of stately edge to it, a slower tempo than I associate with the chorus when I hear it in my head. Oh, definite difference... a verse in the middle is pretty much spoken here where it is very definitely sung in the other version. This feels flatter to me, but then we get a nice melodic outro which pulls the whole tune up with its peppy, light touch.
It does not surprise me that Microdisney weren't a big hit at the time, any more than it surprises me that clever songwriters of my era seem to fly under the radar. That said, there are clearly enough pop sensibilities in these tunes that you could see many of them as radio hits - not all of them, by any means; the slower tunes are not for the mass market, but the livelier numbers could have belted out from radio sets all over and not been out of place.
The songs are clever, on-the-nose. The dark anger, acid and indignation are concealed under a veneer of wholesome pop. I imagine that a lot of the lyrics are incredibly pointed - though it is not always clear, through the fog of 30 years passing (and, perhaps, my not being Irish) what they were pointed at. In some cases it is very clear indeed either directly from the lyrics or through documentation of their targets (though my go-to examples are noticeably not from this disc). I find myself looking up and finding a song I really don't recognise playing... Harmony Time and Money for Trams are two tracks that I don't have in other forms, and the former came on just now. It has a different feel to it, faster-paced, skinny guitar, synthetic keys, a rough-and-tumble rhythm. It almost feels like an improvised tune cribbed out at the end of a concert rather than a planned recording. There is something about it that reminds me of For Those of Y'all Who Wear Fanny Packs - a Ben Folds Five tune where the trio were pissing about in the studio, which was released as part of Naked Baby Photos.
Money for Trams was, I guess, the original end point of the album. This has a slow pace and a cop-show edginess. Vocals are spoken with a PA-like effect. It feels like tense movie music. After a bit of a pause in play - things come up even during time off it seems! - I resume and the same repeating bassline meanders along. Coughlan screeches something over the top, a very different tone of voice to the majority of the lyrics here. All in all I think the song is pretty dull, then we are into the bonuses, which a bit of Googling suggests are Peel Session tracks... so I have these elsewhere.
Genius is indeed faster, and better for it. 464 was not on this album; in fact it seems to only have been on the Peel Session - a bonus track then in truth, though one that made the later anthology. I find myself too much in a stupor to offer much on these closing numbers... though when Goodbye It's 1987 starts playing again it hits me that this was not on the Peel Sessions disc I bought so... well. You know - I can't actually compare the two versions on this disc even. I don't specifically recall enough of the first time it came about. I guess I have been stuck in a relaxing reverie. This second version is light-touch and open, soft and... lazy? Lazy in a good sense - like a Sunday afternoon: easy and to be left to wash over you.
I get the feeling I should perhaps kill some of the duplicates but I also don't feel moved to do so. As I stare blankly at the screen, Horse Overboard finishes for the second time, and suddenly I am done. Ho hum.
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